Audiophiles talk about the thrill of listening to music on their turntable as that format has 130 plus years of history dating back to a far more simple time. Record collections have blossomed again during the COVID-19 pandemic and so have the prices of vinyl records. Some albums that are modern re-releases of classic recordings sell for $30, $50 even $100 plus. That’s at a time when 220,000,000 people can get their music from Amazon Prime (not to mention Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, Qobuz and so many other places) in CD and higher resolution HD files. We’ve seen used vinyl selling for crazy prices too. One example at a local Los Angeles food fair where used LPs were being sold at three different tents, a copy of Metallica’s first album Kill Em All (aka: Metal Up Your Ass as it was supposed to be called) was selling for $100. That was in incredibly worn condition, with the corners crushed and the record itself pretty scratched up. Anybody who pays for that is crazy.

One thrill that you can find as a vinyl junkie is when you find that rare record in the bins and it is a true value. One audiophile talked about finding the U.K version of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s third record, Electric Ladyland. That album cover was banned in the U.S. and would be hard to create outside of a porn set in Chatsworth. In this case, Jimi returned to England where he first rose to fame and went into Polydor Records and asked all of the women at the record label if they wanted to be on the cover of the new double Hendrix album. They all said yes despite the caveat that they all had to get NAKED. We are not kidding. This type of workplace at a record label today could yield $50,000,000 in lawsuits. They did it and the record is a rare find that sells for $600 to $1,000 – if not more. Finding a copy of this rare record is truly a thrill.

One of the audiophile thrills is learning how to setup a turntable. This can get into a lot of science as the physical angle of the tonearm and stylus can have a big impact. Calibrating the speed of an audiophile turntable can get drastically better sound. There are all sorts of details that can best be seen with a microscope. The process of professionally setting up a turntable can provide thrilling audiophile results.

So embrace the fun of owning a bad-ass turntable and collecting vinyl with our complements!